Why, then, not his sanity as well?
He smiled grimly. There would be time enough to seek a cure, if he survived.
“I am going out there to slay that monstrosity, if it can be done,” he called into the air. “You offered to fight together, before. Will you do so now?”
There was no response to his query aside from the echoes of the Nar’ath queen’s fury, which were growing louder by the moment. The mists curled tighter around him like a cocoon.
“Will you come if I call upon you?” Amric shouted.
He looked around for the shadowy figure, but saw no sign of it. He closed his eyes, seeking the insubstantial presence that he knew was nearby, and yet he could not find it. There was nothing. The harder he looked for it, the less certain he was that he had ever felt it, that the whole experience had ever been anything more than a muddled, lingering dream. Perhaps he really was going mad after all.
He tightened his grips on the swords and braced himself, looking upward into the narrowing funnel of mist above him. The shrieks of the Nar’ath queen hammered at him in waves now. The soft caress of the mists felt more and more like the howling bite of a sandstorm. He closed his eyes, pushing back doubt and fatigue, seeking the center of the void he would need to survive in the maelstrom awaiting him in the waking world above.
He exhaled slowly.
“Are you with me?” he whispered.
Yes, I am with you.
Rough hands shook him.
The ingrained instincts of the warrior took over, and he lashed out before he was fully aware, before his eyes even opened. A grip of iron caught his forearm in motion and clamped there, holding him firm. Amric’s eyes flared wide to find Valkarr crouched over him. He could read the relief in his friend’s tight expression even through the swirling, wind-borne sand. Behind Valkarr stood the hazy figures of Sariel and Innikar, peering down at Amric.
A broad grin creased Valkarr’s scaly face. “If you are done resting, warmaster, your warriors are quite ready to leave this place.”
Amric lurched up to a sitting position, and helping hands boosted him to his feet. His head spun and his body ached in more places than he could count, but he managed to stand on his own. His face and hands stung as if burnt, and there was a stabbing pain in his left side when he took too deep a breath.
To his surprise, he found his swords back in his hands, just as in the strange dream. He frowned. His weapons had been lost in the sandstorm as he fought the Nar’ath queen, tumbling from his numb fingers and scattered in different directions. How, then, had they found their way back to him while he was unconscious? The waking world was not like the dream landscape, where he had summoned his belongings with desire alone. Had his friends found them on the chamber floor and pressed them into his unresponsive hands as he was lying there? Whatever the cause, he was grateful for their return.
A sharp tremor shook the ground, accompanied by an ear-splitting peal of agonized fury. The center of the chamber was enveloped in a great cyclone of sand, and from it came waves rippling along the ground like low-hanging smoke. It seemed the Nar’ath queen was injured and angry, and had once more cloaked herself with her eerie control over the wasteland. As Amric studied the tempest, wondering if they could find their way through it to strike at the monster, another tremor ripped through the hive and almost threw him from his feet. There was a sound like the breaking of dry branches, and a network of cracks spidered through one side of the dome overhead. A piece of sandstone the size of a horse cart fell away from the high wall and shattered into a thousand shards of rock upon the ground. Several more followed, and the cracks in the dome began to spread and widen.
“The hive is collapsing,” Sariel shouted. “We need to leave now!”
Amric threw another glance toward the dark, raging heart of the storm, and then nodded. “Let her pull the place down on her own head,” he said. “We will wait for her above, if she emerges.”
They ran for the nearest of the winding stairways. At the foot of the stairs, Amric paused and spun about.
“Bellimar!” he said. “Did you find him as well?”
Valkarr shook his head, his expression grim. “We found no sign of him, but it is hard to locate anything out there. We were very fortunate to find you, once the queen raised the sandstorm again.”
Sariel grabbed at Amric’s arm, pulling him toward the stairs. “There is no time to look again,” she hissed. “We can only hope that he found his way out on his own.”
Amric hesitated, lifting his gaze to the shaking dome above, then gave a reluctant nod and turned back to the stairs. The old man had shown himself to be canny and tough; hopefully that would be enough to see him free of this place of death and destruction.
The warriors sheathed their blades and raced up the curving stairway. The ground fell away below, and they were soon above the roiling clouds of dust and sand, but their ascent proved no less harrowing than the battle below had been. The whole place trembled and heaved, threatening to throw them from the narrow stairs with every step. Twice the steps began to crumble away beneath their heels, and only quick leaps and the clasping hands of their comrades allowed them all to continue climbing toward the night sky.
They were partway up when a fluttering shadow shot free of the maelstrom below and rose through the air in an impossible leap. It clamped to the wall below the stairs ahead of them, clinging like some ragged spider. After a moment’s pause, the figure began to move, scampering up the sheer stone wall. Amric reached over one shoulder for the hilt of a sword as he neared the thing, but then he froze as he recognized the pale, slender hand that reached over the edge of the stairway.
“Bellimar!” he cried.
The old man pulled himself onto the stairs with a grunt, and then rose shakily to his feet. His clothing was torn and he bore countless gashes and scrapes, though his wounds were all puckered and bloodless. He swayed for a moment, clutching his side, and then gave the warriors a rueful look.
“Remind me never to do that again,” he muttered. “I suppose I should be grateful that I am already dead.”
Below, the angry cries of the Nar’ath queen rose to a crescendo. The swirling sands drew together across the hive and toward the core of the storm, leaving the chamber floor bare as they receded like a sudden tide. It all hung there for a moment, dense and dark, and then exploded outward with a sound like a thunderclap. The concussive force pressed them all to the wall of the hive for a moment as the sands bit at their exposed flesh. Then it subsided, and the sand sheeted down the outer wall. The chamber was clear to view once more, as was the Nar’ath queen.
She stood hunched in the center of the hive, seething with rage. She was surrounded by a dozen of her heavyset black minions, which milled about her in fretful uncertainty. The queen’s face was a charred ruin, and her heavy outer jaws hung twisted and useless from the lower part of her elongated skull. From the midst of that blackened visage, however, her green eyes burned with brilliant and unremitting malevolence. Those glowing slits raked over the room, searching for her prey. Her head lifted toward the tiny figures high above her, and her eyes narrowed. With a harsh, gurgling hiss, she burst into motion, surging for the foot of the stairway. The hive, which had become still momentarily, began to shake again with renewed vigor.
Amric’s brow furrowed. The stairs were narrow and unstable; there was no way they would support her bulk. He was about to say as much aloud when the Nar’ath queen reached the wall, and the words died in his throat. The stone wall warped at her approach, twitching and rippling like the hide of a beast. The ground lifted before her, and the stairs near the bottom melted and flowed slowly together to form the beginnings of a ramp. Amric felt a chill. The monster was reforming the place to meet her will, and it would not be long until she was able to pursue them out of the hive.
Amric glanced down. The stone beneath him had begun to shift, as when a strong ocean current pulled the sand out from beneath one’s feet. The edges of the steps were be
coming less definite, rounding and disintegrating before his eyes. He shared a quick glance with the others.
“Run!” he barked. “Now!”
They raced up the stairway as it eroded and crumbled, by turns running and scrambling on all fours. When at last they reached the lip of the dome’s opening, Amric could not recall a time when he had been more grateful to stand beneath the open sky. A roar of frustration followed them as the Nar’ath queen continued her climb. Thalya, Syth and Halthak were waiting for them with the frightened horses.
“Where are the captives?” Amric asked.
“Marching back toward that outcropping of rock we camped on last night,” Thalya responded. “They are weak, and the desert may be no friendly place, but the men seemed to find it preferable to remaining near the hive.”
Amric nodded. “Nice shot, by the way. You have my thanks.”
“You are welcome,” she said. “And you owe me for that arrow.”
But she flashed a smirk as she said it, and he grinned back. Then her gaze strayed to Bellimar, taking in his bedraggled state, and her smile faded. Bellimar met her emerald eyes with an unblinking, unreadable expression. Amric tensed. The huntress had expended two of her powerful ensorcelled arrows, but she had a third remaining. It might look to her as if Bellimar was evincing a moment of vulnerability worth exploiting, but Amric had seen the vampire’s unnatural speed and strength firsthand below. In addition, the Nar’ath queen would reach the top of the dome in short order, and the battle would be resumed. They might need every weapon in their arsenal to stop her, if it was even possible to do so. A confrontation between the two of them here and now would prove disastrous for them all.
Before he could step between them, however, Thalya took a deliberate look up and down Bellimar, her cold expression promising a future reckoning, and then she turned her back on the old man. She stepped into the saddle of her black mare.
Amric let out a slow breath and swung atop his bay gelding. Sariel vaulted up to sit behind him. The others mounted their own horses, with Valkarr and Innikar riding together again, and the group began to pick their way around and down the dome as rapidly as its steep slope allowed. The horses seemed to be having an easier time on the descent than they had when climbing the structure, and Amric realized that the slope was less severe. The hive was slowly sinking, settling as it shook, almost deflating. The riders picked up speed, coaxing the horses to a sliding trot over the crumbling surface.
With a shriek like tearing metal, the Nar’ath queen burst from the hive. Her baleful gaze fell upon the riders, and long black claws tore into the stone as she surged forward after them.
“I hope you have a plan to stop that thing, swordsman,” Syth called as he cast worried looks over his shoulder. “That arrow only seems to have made it mad.”
Amric turned in the saddle to find Valkarr.
“We cannot face her directly again,” the Sil’ath said. “Our blades were little more than annoyances to her. We need to wear her down.”
“Agreed,” Amric replied. “Ride on to the ground and lure her away from the hive. I think she draws power from this location, somehow. Spread out so that she can only chase one at a time, while the others dart in and out quickly. She’s too big for a single killing stroke. Try to bleed her with smaller wounds instead. Weaken her slowly, and then finish her.”
Valkarr’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded in response as he rode. Behind him, Innikar gave Amric a questioning look.
“You talk as if you will not be there,” Sariel hissed into his ear, giving voice to their puzzlement.
“I am hoping it will not come to that,” Amric said with a tight smile. “But those are my orders––my suggestions––in case this does not work.” He handed her the reins.
“In case what does not––” she began.
Amric whipped a leg over the saddle and dropped from the horse.
Sariel shifted forward into the saddle and pulled back on the reins, slowing the big bay, but Amric waved them all on.
“Go!” he shouted. “I think I know how to stop her, but follow Valkarr’s lead if I am wrong.”
The riders exchanged glances, hesitating precious seconds more before spurring their horses onward down the outer surface of the hive. Syth lingered last, clearly torn as mad admiration shone in his eyes. Finally, he threw a long look toward the retreating form of Thalya on her mare, and he turned his horse after the others. Amric smiled; he wondered if Thalya knew.
“You are going to need a bigger weapon!” Syth called back as he rode away, and then Amric was alone.
I know, Amric thought. I am hoping I have brought one.
He turned to face the charging Nar’ath queen.
The riders had made good time, aided in large part by the gradual sinking of the dome. Amric now stood significantly closer to the wasteland below than to the top of the hive. The queen had gained ground on them, certainly, but her own mass and the decaying surface was hampering her progress. The fringe of small appendages skirting her huge form dug into the stone beneath her, keeping her from sliding out of control. She released and grabbed anew in a rippling, insect-like crawl. It brought her toward Amric at an alarming pace, but he was grateful to find it was nowhere near the blinding speed she had exhibited below.
He would need the time, if this was even going to work. If he was not insane after all.
Amric reached inside, searching for the presence he knew was there.
I need you now, he thought. You wanted to fight together. This is our chance.
For long, sickening seconds there was nothing. Amric watched the Nar’ath queen, radiating power and rage, clawing her way toward him. Then the familiar presence filled his mind, drowning his senses. Feelings of fear and urgency hammered at him, wrapping his own emotions and amplifying them until he was all but crushed beneath their weight. He staggered and almost went to one knee as a wave of dizziness struck him.
No! he commanded, gritting his teeth. If we fight for control, we will both die. This time we work together.
The pressure receded and the presence became hesitant, confused. It seemed to Amric like a wild animal, uncertain whether to attack or flee. He needed it to do neither of those, and instead accept a third alternative. His alternative.
I have done my best to deny your existence, he thought. Well, no longer.
The hive shook beneath his feet, and the Nar’ath queen came on.
You have hidden from me within my own mind, and sought to overwhelm me by acting on my behalf, he continued fiercely. No longer.
The Nar’ath queen drew near, glaring her hatred from a ruined face. She crouched low with her torso, squatting with forelimbs outstretched like a massive spider, while the serpentine rear part of her form gathered and tensed for the final pounce.
This time we work together, Amric repeated, lifting his arms.
Power roared within him, filling him like an ocean of white fire.
The Nar’ath queen’s glowing green eyes widened in sudden fear and outrage. “Adept!” she screamed. “Deceiver!”
With thunderous force that shook the dome anew, she catapulted into the air toward him. Amric raised his hands, palms outward, and made a sharp pushing motion. The monstrosity struck an invisible force in midair and careened backward to slam into the stone. Fine cracks snaked in every direction from the point of impact. She twisted back into an upright position in an instant, but he was not done. Operating on pure instinct––his or the other’s, he was not certain which––he reached out with hands flared open to send tendrils of power threading through the disintegrating stone of the hive. The dome began to rumble even more violently than before. The Nar’ath queen scrabbled with her talons over the bucking surface, seeking enough purchase for another charge.
“We will destroy your kind, Adept!” she spat. “My minions will––”
“Let us see if you can command your minions from hell, fiend!” Amric snarled back.
He clenched both hands into fis
ts. A deafening roar shook the hive, and the top half of the massive dome fell away before him in an avalanche of stone. The Nar’ath queen vanished from sight, clawing and shrieking, sucked into a growing vortex of rock and sand. The hive continued to fracture and tumble in after her, and her screeching was lost in the thunder.
A meandering crack split the stone at Amric’s feet. The vast hole that had been the top of the hive was growing rapidly; the ragged edge crumbled toward him like a voracious, widening maw that meant to consume him as well.
Amric turned and ran.
His body was bruised and battered, his every nerve tingling, and it felt as if he had been somehow singed from the inside. He pushed it all from his mind as best he could. Right now, to run was to live, and the fates be damned but he was going to run. He ran down the slope at a reckless pace, hurdling cracks as they yawned before him and skirting the sinkholes that opened like sores in the earth. The surface of the dome was decaying, softening from stone to sand, and seemed to catch at his boots as he pounded over it. His footing was far too treacherous to risk a look back, but his fevered imagination put the collapsing edge at his very heels.
He hurled himself past the last bit, leaping through the air to strike the sand of the wasteland. He rolled several times and came to his knees, gasping for breath. He was just in time to see the last remnants of the hive vanish beneath a crashing wave of sand, sending a plume of dust high into the night sky. Where the imposing structure had been, there was nothing left but a broad, shallow crater in the desert.
Amric sagged back on his haunches, shuddering with reaction. The strange presence flitted and circled within him, almost giddy, while he only felt a chilling numbness inside. He turned his hands over, staring down at them as if they were not his own. Wisps of smoke rose in slow curls from his fingers.
The whicker of horses caused him to lift his head. The others drew rein a short distance away, their eyes wide as they stared at him. Valkarr rode at the head of the group. Amric searched his friend’s expression, seeking any clue as to what he was feeling at the moment: revulsion, fear, anything. But the Sil’ath’s face was frozen in shock, and revealed nothing.
The Essence Gate War: Book 01 - Adept Page 42
